Biography of Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams was born in on February 20, 1902 into a wealthy San Francisco family. As a child Ansel practiced to be a concert pianist. However in 1915 things began to change. At the age of 13 Ansel was taken out of school and his father bought him a season pass to the Panama-Pacific Exposition, which he visited almost every day. In 1916 Ansel took his first trip to Yosemite National Park. With a camera given to him by his father he took his first pictures which sparked his interest in photography. Ansel Adams' began taking pictures in the soft focus style, which was the norm of his day, until he encountered Paul Strand. Strand practiced in sharp focus photography. This sharp focus has since become a trademark of Adams. Another trademark of Adams is the Zone System. This system was his greatest technical contribution to the art of photography. Through this system Adams worked at perfecting each stage of the picture taking process. Adams' goal was to create technically flawless prints in order to capture the mood of the environment in which he took the picture. Using this method the same photograph taken by two different people would result in two different pictures as would a picture taken at
different times by the same photographer. The zone system divided the gradations of light in a scene into ten zones from black to white. This allowed him to picture the contrast more efficiently and thus take technically superior pictures. Ansel Adams was a conservationist as well as a photographer. He served as an official photographer for the Sierra Club, an environmental association dedicated to the preservation of American wilderness. Adams used his photographs to help spread his love for the wilderness. Sixteen years ago the world lost one of the most influential photographers and preservationists ever. In 1984 Ansel Adams died of heart failure aggravated by cancer. In the same year the United States Congress established the Ansel Adams Wilderness Area, between Yosemite National Park and John Muir Wilderness Area. In 1985 Mt. Ansel Adams was named for him and in 1989 the Ansel Adams Center in San Francisco opened to display his works and those of other great photographers. Ansel Adams Left his mark in Photography and in Preservation. His name has become a synonym for photographs of breathtaking landscapes everywhere. Adams' Pictures "Cathedral Peak and Lake" and "Minarets, Evening
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Approximate Word count = 819
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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